Speaker Pelosi's Ethics

By

Daniel Henninger

Updated Jan. 5, 2007 11:59 p.m. ET

Ethics in politics is not the same as ethics in real life. Ethics in politics is a martial art. The biggest mistake you can make is thinking that the ethics package proposed by new Speaker Nancy Pelosi is mainly about "cleaning up" politics. Maybe. But it's first of all about cleaning the clocks of the Republicans.

The House Republicans got lazy. Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, earmarks, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney. When Nancy Pelosi saw the Republicans had developed a compulsion to flagrantly throw their weight around,...